[Closed] Got wood .... and it's big!

Soooo jealous!

Very tempted to pull the splitter out while the sun't shining to test my theory!

Nice!

We no longer our wood for free.

I have to pay... that lot was £80 delivered, so not bad really. I'm certainly not in McMoonter's league but I've got a couple of years supplies building up and will keep adding to it whenever my mate has a spare load.

Everyone needs a tree surgeon in their life. That's a hefty delivery. Cold, dry winter days are great for log splitting. At the last count I had 20 Holzhausens, a veritable Himalayas of wood.

Really big stuff can be a challenge to process. My neighbours had a big Sycamore taken down in the spring. Some of the big chunks were similar to yours. The tree surgeons asked if I wanted it? I couldn't say no. Trouble was that the tree had stood in a garden where generations had hammered nails and other iron into the trunk. It was like a metal porcupine in the middle. I trashed three chains cutting it up. I ended up using wedges to save the saws

http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/the-log-fairy-cometh-big-baddass-tractor-content

Nice.

I collected a couple of cubes of Oak from my tree surgeon buddy last week. 'I've taken down a little one' he said. Rings were about 20" Diameter, a nice size to deal with tbh, but I'm now slightly fearful of the ' in the new year I'm dropping a big Oak, you can have that too'

Well I blame myself, I did tell him I'd bought a bigger saw.

I don't think I'd fancy those big round shark bait! Definitely couldn't get one in the back of my Octavia....nope. are they even budgeable by hand? 4-5' rounds will be ridiculously heavy. Having dealt with Ash approaching 3' diameter I would think 4' will need machinery surely? If I could get them flat I'd likely cut a slot then try and wedge them. Failing that they would have to wait until I rebuild the box of 660 parts back into one piece, then I'd make noodles.

No.... I'll be pleased to get stuff up to 2', 2'6" is possible but beyond that just gets too hard without machinery.

SE19, Fiskars fanboy.

Couldn't resist!

The rings take some moving... I can't shift even half a ring on my own so thank god for hydraulics 🙂

Yes, my plan will work.
[IMG] [/IMG]

Gives the splitter something to think about as well. They should split really nicely which should make stacking much tidier.

are they even budgeable by hand?

Ahh yes. I was guessing you had something like a tractor and bucket as the photo looks like a farm setting. I think I remember your thread from when you bought the splitter too, you had a screw before yes?

That gear will do the job nicely! I'll leav that big stuff to you though!

Still got the screw splitter (it's in the background of the above picture). But it's on eBay now as I sold my big tractor earlier this year.
Mower/loader/petrol splitter combo is cheaper to run and I can handle bigger stuff as well.

(Not a real farm but I'm lucky enough to have a bit of land and find band to stick toys in!)

Hi Sharkbait,

bit of a tangent but..

I have been trying to source some large slices of wood for hand carving bowls and your picture at the start of the thread looks interesting.

I am looking for something around 18" diameter and about 6" deep.

Could you suggest anywhere?

thanks,

paul

Not sure really... I'd suggest contacting some tree surgeons near you to see if they can help.

... probs about 6 tons.

How long will that last you?

😯

Seems a bit of a waste. Couldn't something that size have been turned into something a bit more useful than firewood?

km79 - to me, nothing in that pile looks like it could have made a long enough straight piece to be worth milling. Some things are best processed for firewood.

You do seem to have all the big rings and branch unions though.

I was drinking the water/sap from an Oak I felled on Tuesday, was pouring out of the thing. We’ve got a rock splitter too, sadly pissing hydraulic fluid at the moment for some reason

[IMG] [/IMG]

Houns - just at the joints? They need nipping up when the weather goes cold, end up doing it on most of our hydraulic kit at the start of winter. Takes ages chasing them over the timber crane.

No, through the valve/nipple. We think it may have been overfilled/bodged/ballsed up/wrong fluid used. Just waiting to hear back from Rock with instructions then we’ll give it a good service/flush/new fluid. To be fair it’s doing an amazing job, worked very hard on a commercial scale but it’s only a heavy duty ‘home’ splitter

Got distracted by dinner so missed the edit time frame for first post

Took this moments before ‘surfing’ it

[IMG] [/IMG]

We can’t keep up with demand for firewood so having to extend our log store. The 3 original bays have been filled twice over since April, so that gives idea of the work the splitter is doing (each original bay was 1.5m wide, 2.5m tall, 2.5m deep)

[IMG] [/IMG]

We’re not going to be short of wood, current clearing a 6m wide 1km long ride, another 4km worth is planned in future, plus a huge area of pine that’s on land that was donated to us earlier in year

We thought the sheds were looking a bit full, but think firewood delivery is going to make up most of our December work now. Just started felling for winter after next, thinning a lot of ash and birch. Demand has been a bit variable due to mild weather the last 12 months. Still shifted 50t of cord out to other processors though.

Birch and Oak is the bulk of the stuff we’re removing at the moment, with the odd Sycamore and Rowan, I hate seeing the Oaks go, but I’d happily see every single Birch on the whole site gone (they’re all towards the end of their life anyway). In my pic, the right hand bay is all that we have left that is reasonably seasoned. The log sales are just word of mouth, god knows how busy we’d be if we advertised it

The pine on the new land I think is going to be sold standing, it’s too much for us to do and not worth the investment of proper machinery

We work by word of mouth too, can't be spending all our time on firewood, but not everything is sawlog quality. Have to remind customers that if they pass on our details too much that there will be none left for them.

Timber prices are good right now and look like they will only rise, chip is a bit more static, but everything else is rising, can sell anything we feel now for nearly 4x what we could 10 years ago.

Obviously site dependent, but consider keeping some of the softwood to shelter the new growth, can keep an area warm and help it recover quicker.

We’re just selling logs by the (Ford) Ranger load, fill the pick up bed level, £60 delivered and stacked. We’re burning so much brash that we could be using it to heat a kiln, but again too much outlay for something that the head Ranger just wants to keep as a little side line

How long will that last you?

This is the model we use, the 12 ton. Has worked faultlessly and way beyond what it was designed for. I genuinely believe the fault is due to human hamfistedness. It’s leaking from the cap circled. There is a lot of air in the fluid too

[IMG] [/IMG]

I think an ‘all in one’ machine will be applied for when the next budget window comes along

Nice splitter there houns.... I got the 20 ton version basically because it works vertically as well as horizontally.

Not quite sure why you're getting air in the oil though?!

This is a mates log store, quite empty as this was taken back in march but it's now full to the brim for a long winter, handily i can pilfer as much as i need in return for very occasionally helping him out for an hr or two. Gotta love free wood 😀

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

Looking at the first pic, there’s some amazing chopping blocks in there...
Seems a shame to be burning oak like that, couldn’t some of it be used for craft work, carving, small bowl turning and the like?

Our setup is similar size to Somafunks picture, but separate sheds spread around a yard and with the timber mostly stacked away in the woods until splitting time.

Happy to sell to wood carvers, but very time consuming people to deal with who buy very little.

Wow there are some wood piles there! So Houns, you've done in excess of 56m3 since April. I thought I'd been doing well, I've processed about 16m3 in the same time. However I don't have a splitter so I guess I'm doing ok.

Think somafunk's mate must be a relation of mcmoonter! He may even have more wood.

That’s just his “seasoned” wood ready for processing whether that be planks or firewood, the “green wood” yard is rather larger.

that's a lot of wood. I feel I need to get more suddenly!

I can’t claim doing it all, I volunteer for the National Trust